In some fifteen years of dealing with various taxi companies in various towns, I have never been stranded at home. I've had to wait very long times for rides in some places--sometimes two hours--and this has sometimes made me late for various appointments. However, that is a problem I have never had in Indiana. I learned that the company here likes regular riders who are polite and pay up; and I've been riding with them since 1998. I've learned that if I need a ride on the spur of the moment, I should allow about 30 minutes but can generally expect them to show up in five or ten. Since starting school, I have been setting up scheduled pick-ups, and this works very well. I call a couple of hours ahead in the morning and let them know what time I need to go in, and they are there within a ten-minute window. If I know when I will be ready to go home, I set up the return trip in the morning; otherwise, I wait for them once I call in the afternoon.

This morning, they were not picking up the phones. This is a problem I had occasionally in TX and have had maybe twice since being here. Here, it happens at lunchtime and I can count on them beginning to pick up again within 30 minutes.

No such luck this morning. If it was warm and I was not carrying 20 pounds of braille, I would walk. It is not warm, and what I need to do is lug two or three volumes of braille up to Hebrew class.

I sent a note to the professor explaining the problem--I felt a bit like I was claiming that the dog ate my homework. I said that I will write out the translations we would have been reading. This is tedious in a way, but it also allows me to use more reference materials than I can get to in class. I just cannot take enough volumes to do the readings and the exercises from grammar and have access to a dictionary... Until my vocabulary is stronger, translation is a very bulky process for me. Dr. R. has been serving as a reader in instances where I would have looked up a word. This is helpful, though it often takes more exposures for me to retain the word when I'm not looking it up myself. I need to make more time to do some of this kind of work next semester. I've always intended to work with some unassigned passages just for the purpose of strengthening my vocabulary. I've been too sick to do anything this semester but stay afloat. It is time to get ahead.

Comments

Using cabs can be trying at times. One thing I hate is that every time I buy ice cream the cabs are slow and it melts. Also in winter more people take them and I have longer waits in the cold. Not much can be done though I guess.

Good luck with the hebrew. I admire your persistance. It seems like a lot of work.

I used to never use cabs. In the past year I've been using them a lot for work, and they can be so frustrating sometimes, but they are so convenient time-wise! I had one for work once show up an hour late and ended up cancelling (I'd missed my appointment with a student) and calling to complain. They took that pretty seriously and haven't done it since.

Is there a reason you can't use a braille display with your Hebrew materials, or at least some of it? That sounds like a lot to lug and it's too bad you're still not able to bring as much as everyone else!

Theoretically I could. However, my textbook is not available in digital form and I haven't figured out how to acces a searchable lexicon quickly yet. That is a project for the break. I need to examine the digital files from JBI more closely and see whether they will provide me the same braille as the hard copy--some of them look different slightly and some are done without vowels. There are copies of the readings in my grammar text; but they are done without dagheshes and shevas which at this point causes me to make errors unnecessarily. There are very good reasons for showing these marks in scholarly resources. So I've been lugging the hard copies of appropriate volumes of the Bible, which does include the marks.